


Dictionary Definitions

by lizardking



Category: Ugly Betty
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardking/pseuds/lizardking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betty goes to London, Daniel stays in New York. But only for so long. Spoilers for the Ugly Betty finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dictionary Definitions

By the time Daniel gets his head out of his ass, Betty's been in London for weeks. He feels like he's been barely functioning, but in reality, he's clean enough and every time he tries to make his apartment match his mood the maid his mother hired comes in and cleans it all up. So Daniel looks mostly like the Daniel Betty knew and left, except he's not precisely and his mother doesn't miss an opportunity to tell him so.

When he tells her he's leaving, all she says is "Finally." Or "about time," or something like that. Whatever it is, it's smug and it infuriates him almost as much as the fact that he knows that she and Betty have been emailing and he hasn't gotten a single word. Not a photo, not one text. He reads her blog obsessively. 

On the flight over, he practices his speech, the way Betty must have rehearsed her goodbye to him. Hurting anyone is so beyond her, she has to practice. But if Daniel's being honest with himself, that's not necessarily true. She's stabbed him before, with her pointy words and judgmental (disappointed, he tells himself) eyes. 

In London, Daniel books a nice hotel. No sense staying in squalor. He dreams about renting a flat, one nicer than Betty can afford on her salary, and luring her there under the pretense of asking her opinion on wallpaper or curtains. He'll give her a dresser drawer, then slowly start moving her over until she agrees to never leave. And this is all very weird for Daniel, even if part of how weird it is is how natural it all seems, how right that it should be here. 

He follows her. He wouldn't go so far as to use the word "stalk," but it probably fairly close to the dictionary definition. He just wants to know her routine, so he can bump into her and make it seem natural. 

When he finally does it, nothing goes as he'd planned. He expected anger, or at least shock— but she doesn't look surprised at all. She just looks busy. Happy to see him, but rushing off to a place he can't follow, let alone lead. His heart squeezes. His mother must have told her that he was here. He wonders why he didn't think of it, and it makes the days he spent tracking her, learning her schedule seem like a waste. He thinks he can learn to trail in her wake. She spent three years in his.

She agrees to dinner, at least. That's something.

**Author's Note:**

> I found this drabble when I was cleaning up my old computer. So, it's very old. But I never put it out there, and I thought, why not?


End file.
